


First Up Against the Wall (the grease and diesel oil remix)

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Class Issues, F/F, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-05
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 11:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgana drives like a maniac, has more money than sense and a weird obsession with semi-public sex, and Gwen thinks she's falling in love with her anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heathered](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heathered/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Grease-stained](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/1597) by Heather. 



1.  
The first time Gwen meets Morgana she nearly concusses herself on the underside of a Vauxhall Astra. Her dad has taken the tow-truck to rescue a motorist stranded at the side of the dual carriageway, and Gwen is in the inspection pit, finishing up a service before she takes her lunch break.

She turns and starts at the sight of a pair of shoes up on ground level, she hadn't heard anybody come in. In the confined space her slight jump is enough to clatter her head off the car.

 _Ow._ One of these days she's going to learn to not be so bloody jumpy when she's in the garage alone.

"Hello," says a female voice, "anyone here?"

She waits until her eyes stop watering before hauling herself out of the pit and finding herself face to, well, kneecap with a woman around her own age.

That's about where their similarities end though. The woman is dressed in knee high leather boots, a black and white pinstripe business suit with a pencil skirt, and a long black overcoat hangs down her back like a cape; while Gwen has on a ratty yellow t-shirt under her mechanics overalls.

Gwen imagines that the grease and grime of the garage is actually recoiling from this woman with her shiny hair and clean fingernails for fear of getting her dirty.

"Hi?" she manages, scrambling to her feet.

"I ran over a huge pothole just around the corner and blew a tire out. The RAC said it'd take an hour to get anybody to me, and I'm already horrifically late for a meeting?"

"Um," says Gwen. "I'm here on my own, and I can't really leave. Sorry."

She thinks, You called the RAC out for a flat tire, _really?_

"Oh. Right. Well, just thought I'd ask."

The woman looks so lost and out of place in the garage, and sometimes Gwen hates being almost pathologically helpful.

"Wait. I'm due a break around now anyway, I could take a quick look?"

The woman smiles, and she's got really nice teeth. Oh God, it's really been too long if she's noticing women's _teeth._

*

Gwen discovers that the woman's name is Morgana and her car is a silver Mercedes SLK; a good bit posher than the garage's usual trade, but all cars are the same really once you lift the bonnet - it's part of what Gwen likes about them.

She tells Morgana this, aware that she probably sounds like a giant dork.

"It must be amazing to know about cars," says Morgana.

"Oh, well..." Gwen smiles and ducks her head. It's not like it's arcane knowledge available only to an elite few or anything, but she isn't about to tell Morgana not to be impressed with her.

It must have been one hell of a pothole Morgana hit, because the silver Mercedes is slewed half across the pavement, just shy of a lamp-post, one of the front tires in shreds.

"I might have been speeding a bit," Morgana says shamelessly.

"Right. Okay. I can change the tire for you quickly, but, um, you should get it checked in case you've damaged the wheel."

Morgana beams at her as though she's just cured the mechanical equivalent of cancer, and when she bends over to fit the jack under the car Gwen thinks she can feel Morgana's eyes on her backside. Wishful thinking, obviously.

She gets Morgana's tire changed with a minimum of trouble and before Morgana pulls away she rolls down the driver's side window and says, "Can I have your number?"

"Um," says Gwen. But she tries to surreptitiously wipe the worst of the oil from her hands on her thighs before accepting the proffered iPhone and tapping in her mobile number.

Morgana drives away and a voice in Gwen's ear says, "She was staring at your arse."

Gwen jumps. "Will! Don't sneak up on me like that. And no she wasn't."

"She was. When you were changing the tire. Right. At your. Arse."

"Are you on your lunchbreak?" she asks to change the subject.

"Yeah. I'm off to shamelessly abuse Merlin's employee discount to procure some sandwiches from Tesco, want to come?"

Gwen sees the tow-truck parked back in front of the garage. "Just let me go and tell my dad where I'm going."

 

2\.   
Over the course of the week Gwen becomes increasingly convinced that she'd misread the situation and Morgana had actually been asking for the number of the garage in case there were any more problems with her car.

So when Morgana does call, Gwen's half convinced it's because she's broken down on a hard shoulder somewhere and when Morgana asks her to dinner it takes her a moment to answer.

"I still owe you for rescuing me last week."

"I don't know that I rescued you."

"Oh, you did. You were quite the white knight. So how about it? Friday night? Around eight?"

Gwen finds herself giving Morgana her address so she can pick her up. Then she hangs up and calls Merlin to have a panic attack at him.

"I don't see what the problem is," says Merlin. "Unless you don't want to go out with her?"

"No, I do. It's just, Merlin, this girl. You didn't see her. The car, the clothes, where on earth am I going to go with a girl like that?"

"I didn't see her, but Will did, he's made up a little song about it. Will, sing that song."

Gwen hears Will singing in the background and rolls her eyes. _Boys._ She loves Merlin and Will, she really does, but there are days when she is inordinately glad she's a lesbian.

"Is Freya there? Can I speak to her?"

The phone gets passed to Merlin's girlfriend who takes it into a more peaceful part of the flat. She's much more quietly sympathetic than Merlin, but says that Gwen should go on the date and they shouldn't condemn Morgana for knowing a good thing when she sees it.

*

Gwen wears a lilac dress that has received enthusiastic reviews from Merlin and Will, wears her hair down and is constantly brushing it out of her eyes because she's so used to twisting it up so that it doesn't get into her face while she's working. She tells herself not to panic, it's only a date.

*

The date is awful.

Morgana picks her up, smiles politely and holds the car door open for her. She looks, not disappointed... but as though she's remembering Gwen differently. Maybe she remembers her being prettier, or has gotten really carried away with this white knight fantasy of hers.

She drives like a maniac, too. Every time she changes gear Gwen winces in sympathy with the engine.

The restaurant is. Well. Gwen is half expecting to be asked to leave for bringing the tone of the place down. And she wonders if she should offer to pay for half of dinner, she always does in these situations, but she had been looking forward to having _some_ wages this month.

Gwen and Morgana chat while Gwen silently frets about the price of the meal and the size of her overdraught. The chatting turns out to be a mistake. They have nothing in common.

Gwen talks a little about having worked in her father's garage since she was sixteen. Morgana tells her about her job doing something high finance in the City, which Gwen doubts qualifies as a real job, and probably means that Morgana is one of the people who Will jokingly claims will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Gwen tells some anecdotes about Merlin and Will from when they were all at school together, and Morgana talks a little about Cambridge. Despite her best intentions Gwen zones out a little after the words "boat race".

The bill comes and Gwen can't tell if Morgana catches her panic-stricken expression before she casually hands over her credit card.

Morgana drives her home, the car lurching with every gear change, and if the evening had gone a little better Gwen would have told her that the clutch is not for what Morgana seems to think it's for.

Morgana kisses Gwen on the cheek and thanks her for a pleasant evening.

Merlin and Will pounce on her as soon as she's through her front door. Gwen knew she should have confiscated Merlin's key when he'd moved in with Freya.

"I am never going to see that woman again in my life," Gwen announces with finality.

 

3.  
"Hello, Gwen," says Morgana.

This time Gwen manages to avoid clattering her head on the underside of the car's bonnet as she whirls round.

"Morgana, I...?"

Gwen is making a quick mental list of all the things she could possibly have accidentally left in Morgana's car that the other woman could be returning when Morgana says, "My car."

"Something wrong with it?"

"Yes. It's the..." Morgana trails off with that expression peculiar to the non-mechanically inclined when they are called upon to talk about cars. "That is, I need to book it in for an MOT."

Gwen glances over Morgana's shoulder at the license plate. "It's not even two years old yet, they don't need an MOT until they're three."

Morgana looks embarrassed, ducking her head and avoiding Gwen's eyes. "Caught me. I didn't know that, I've never gone three years without buying a new car."

Gwen's reaction is pretty evenly split between "You're really very cute" and "You're actually from outer space, aren't you?"

"Morgana," Gwen starts because she still doesn't know why Morgana is here.

"The other night was rubbish, I'm sorry."

"Well, uh, I wouldn't say that it was, you know, rubbish. And it wasn't as though it was just your fault."

"No, it was. I was trying to impress you with money, and I don't think that you're really that type."

Gwen almost says that she's not any kind of type, thank you very much. It's Morgana who is superior and arrogant and know-it-all.

"I think," she says instead, "that we're very different people."

"Yes," agrees Morgana, meeting Gwen's eyes and smirking. "So how would I go about impressing you?"

"You want me to tell you how to--" Gwen manages to stop herself before she says "seduce me" because that's not necessarily what's happening here, even if it really, really looks like it is.

Morgana seems to recognise Gwen's meaning because her smirk actually gets more evil. "I could take a guess, but I just think this way would be faster."

"I-I don't even... Wait, can you cook?"

"Actually, yes."

*

Morgana _can_ cook. Gwen is in no danger of starving to death herself, even after Merlin and his diabolical attempts at cheese on toast moved out and left her without a flatmate. But Morgana can cook like people on television can cook.

She's even got one of those miniature blowtorches for the tops of crème brûlées.

It goes much better this time. Morgana laughs at her story about Will and Merlin and the time they got their GCSE chemistry teacher's car crushed under a falling tree. She even tries to top it by telling Gwen of a prank war she'd once got into with someone called Arthur that had ended with a small flock of sheep in a lecture hall and them both nearly being sent down from Cambridge.

After dinner they kiss for a long time on Morgana's couch. It's early spring and the evenings are light and balmy and it's less than a five-minute walk to the underground station, and this is only their second date; but Gwen thinks that if Morgana were to say something about it being too late or cold for Gwen to go home she'd agree like a shot.

When Morgana closes her lips over the pulse point on Gwen's neck and sucks hard enough that Gwen's sure she's going to leave a mark, Gwen wonders if she should start making noises about the time or the weather. Then Morgana pulls back and apologetically says that she's got an early meeting in the morning, so...

Right. Second date. Early meeting. Gwen's got to be in the garage first thing, too. This is sensible. Morgana's not _trying_ to kill her.

*

Morgana _has_ left a mark on Gwen's throat. She wears a scarf for three days. Will makes up another song. Merlin and Freya sing backup.

 

4.  
Gwen is horrifically late for her date with Morgana. They're supposed to be going for a picnic in the park and Gwen's been looking forward to it. It's a beautiful day for it, and it doesn't involve spending any money.

Gwen's been having a lot of fun with Morgana these last few weeks - Morgana's worked her way through the first three chapters of one those glossy French cookbooks that Gwen didn't think anybody actually used - and unlike Will she doesn't believe that there's anything fundamentally _wrong_ with rich people. But they do rub along together best when they don't remind themselves that Morgana could afford to buy and sell Gwen a dozen times over.

Technically it's her day off, but she wanted to do some work on her own car, a twenty year old Mini that's running on Gwen's mechanical skills, string and prayer. She's in her kitchen, coveralls stripped down to her waist, trying to wash the oil off her hands, when she hears the knock at her front door.

"Morgana? The door's unlocked, I'm in the kitchen." Gwen hears the door open and close and the smart clip of Morgana's heels in the hall. "I'm running a little late. Just let me finish cleaning up--"

With two quick steps Morgana's pressed against Gwen, pressing kisses to the side of her neck, her hands finding the sliver of skin between Gwen's t-shirt and coveralls.

"Morgana!" Gwen says, laughing, playfully batting Morgana away. "Be careful! I'll get you dirty."

"Is that a promise?"

Gwen squirms round in Morgana's grasp. Her eyes are stormy grey and intense and Gwen's playful swat has left a smear of oil coloured soap across her cheek and nose. "I, um, I thought we were going for a picnic?"

"We could do that, yes. Or, we could stay here and I could do things to you that'll make you never want to go outside again?"

"Is _that_ a promise?"

Morgana smirks triumphantly. "Which way to your bedroom?"

*

Gwen doesn't know about the rest of her life, but she'd certainly be happy to spend the rest of the day in bed with Morgana. Unfortunately, she can't.

"Um."

"Hmm?" answers Morgana sleepily. She's half wrapped in Gwen's sheets and Gwen can see a smudge of engine oil on her inner thigh and can't decide if it's kind of disgusting or the sexiest thing she's ever seen in her life.

"I have to get up."

Morgana blinks. "Oh. _Oh_ , right. I'll go."

"I'm not kicking you out of bed or anything," Gwen says quickly. Morgana, who has already half wriggled into a pair of designer jeans, raises an eyebrow at that. "I mean, I am, but... My friend, Will, he's on this five-a-side football team, and they're a player short. So he's talked Merlin into playing, and Merlin, he's lovely, but he's sort of clinically uncoordinated. I was going to go along for moral support or in case he needed someone to drive him to casualty."

"Sounds fun," Morgana says, pulling on a high-heeled boot.

"Um, do you want to come?" Gwen can't believe she just asked that, because of course Morgana doesn't want to watch Merlin and Will playing football, _badly._

"Okay."

*

Merlin sees Gwen standing on the sidelines with Morgana and gives her a totally unsubtle two thumbs up. That's when the football comes flying through the air and whacks him on the side of the head. Gwen winces in sympathy and Morgana puts a hand up to her mouth to smother a laugh.

*

Gwen's lying on Morgana's couch, Morgana kissing her breathless while her hands roam under Gwen's top. This is rather brilliant because, well, it's Morgana. And because it's given Gwen an excuse to turn the television off while the election results are on every channel. Gwen's in very definite like with Morgana now, and although she strongly suspects Morgana of being an actual card carrying, milk stealing Tory, she doesn't need confirmation of it.

"More wine?" Morgana asks against Gwen's neck.

"Mmm," Gwen agrees. Morgana pads through to the kitchen with their wine glasses and Gwen considers calling Merlin and getting him to hold the phone up so she can hear Will railing about how this is the end of the world as they know it.

She sits up to reach for her bag and realises that Morgana has gotten her bra unfastened under her top. God, sometimes that woman is such a child.

Before Gwen can find her mobile, Morgana's landline rings. "Get that, would you, Gwen?" Morgana calls through from the kitchen.

Gwen picks up the phone and before she can say anything a male voice is barking in her ear about somebody called Owain who has made some sort of massive cock-up and mislaid the gross national product of a small Balkan state.

"Er," says Gwen, "I'll get Morgana."

"Why can't this wait until tomorrow, Arthur?" says Morgana when she's plucked the phone from Gwen's grasp. "Well, I told you not to put Owain in charge of that account... Arthur... Arthur! Well, call Leon if you're that worried... That was Gwen who answered the phone... Yes, I _have_ mentioned her before... Fine, I'll bring her to the pub on Friday."

Morgana hangs up with a roll of her eyes. "Sorry about that. Where were we?" she asks with a lewd smile.

*

Morgana being Morgana, it's Thursday lunchtime before she calls Gwen to ask what her plans are for Friday evening. Gwen considers saying she's busy, but she hasn't seen Morgana all week and she's morbidly curious to see what Morgana's friends are like.

*

Morgana's friends are, um...

There's Arthur, who arrives when Gwen's in the bathroom and when she returns to the table he mistakes her for a member of staff and starts to place his order. Morgause, who gives Gwen a quick once over before dismissing her with a curl of her lip and proceeding to ignore her for the rest of the evening. Owain, who seems pretty cheerful for somebody who's just lost more money than Gwen can even imagine. And Leon, who asks Gwen what she does for a living and then looks completely baffled when she says she's a mechanic.

Morgana and her friends get quite drunk. Gwen sticks to tap water because she _cannot_ afford this place and she hates the idea of having to ask Morgana to pay almost as much as the fact that she probably wouldn't have to ask, Morgana would just unthinkingly whip out her credit card because money means _nothing_ to her.

They all talk over her. Even Morgana's on the other side of the table cooking up some sort of diabolical scheme with Morgause.

Then Arthur, in a misguided attempt to include her, makes some sort of arrogant declaration about what the poor think and looks to Gwen for confirmation. For God's sake, she's not even poor and she's certainly not _the_ poor.

"Excuse me," she says and nearly trips over Leon's long legs in her hurry to get away from the table. God, the _entitlement_ of these people.

*

Morgana finds her leaning against the wall in a corridor marked "Staff Only".

"Poor Gwen," she says, pressing herself against Gwen until their foreheads are touching. Her skin is hot and Gwen can smell the scotch on her breath. "You're not having a very good time are you?"

Gwen lets out a shaky laugh. "Is it that obvious?"

Morgana kisses her eyelids, the corner of her mouth, brings Gwen's hand up to her mouth and kisses her fingertips. "Sometimes I don't think my friends are very nice."

"I--"

"You're nice," Morgana nuzzles Gwen's neck, "and I'm nice."

"Yes," agrees Gwen, because even though half the time she doesn't know why she thinks it, she does think Morgana's awfully nice. "You're very--"

Gwen stops because Morgana has just slid to her knees on the floor in front of Gwen and is pushing up the fabric of Gwen's yellow summer dress. "You're drunk."

"I'm _happy_ ," says Morgana, already sounding more sober.

"You're barking," Gwen says as Morgana's fingers hook around her knickers and tug them down. "Someone might come in."

"Do you want me to stop?" Morgana asks seriously.

Gwen bites her lip and shakes her head slightly. She hops on one foot then the other so Morgana can get her underwear out of the way. Gwen watches as her knickers disappear into Morgana's pocket.

Gwen lets Morgana hook her left leg over Morgana's shoulder. Morgana turns her head and places a quick kiss above Gwen's knee. Then she shuffles forward and Gwen can feel Morgana's warm breath on her inner thigh and lets her head thunk back against the wall.

" _Please don't go for a fag break just now_ " Gwen tries to think in the direction of the bar, and it's lucky she's not actually psychic because a short while later the harried bar staff would have wondered why they found themselves thinking " _Oh God, oh God, please don't stop_."

*

Gwen finds herself less annoyed by Morgana's friends for the rest of the evening. Mainly because she's too busy worrying if anyone in the pub can tell she's got no underwear on.

 

5.  
Their first real fight is about money.

Well, it's about a lot of things. All the little niggles and annoyances that they've been pushing away and ignoring because they've been having good fun and good sex, and Gwen thinks she might be falling in love. And it shouldn't really matter that most of the time they're not on the same book, let alone the same page.

But mainly, it's about money.

Morgana wants to go on holiday with Gwen, who can't afford it and says as much.

"I've said I'll pay for you."

"I don't want you to pay for me."

"Then what do you want, Guinevere?"

"Well, right now I want you to stop acting as though being with me is some massive sacrifice on your part and the reason you can't have nice things."

"You want me to be ashamed of having money?"

"I want you to stop acting like everyone who doesn't is a member of a different species."

"I do not act like that."

"Yes, you do. You all do. Morgause took one look at me, mentally labelled me as a serf and hasn't said two words to me ever since. And this is your _best friend_."

"My friends? What about the way your friend, Will, starts quoting The Communist Manifesto every time he sees me?"

"He's _joking_."

"Only because he hasn't read The Communist Manifesto."

"Morgana--"

"No! Every time I try to make a gesture, to show you how I feel, you throw it back in my face."

"That's because the only way you know how to make gestures is to throw money around!"

"I love you! I love you, you stupid idiot. How's that for a gesture?"

"Um." To be honest, Gwen could have lived without the stupid idiot bit. Apart from that it was nice, unexpected, but nice.

Morgana huffs out a breath. "You don't have say anything back."

"No, um, I do love you, actually quite a lot."

"This doesn't fix anything, does it?"

"No, but it really makes me want to try to fix it," Gwen says with a hopeful smile.

"Me too."

 

6.  
Summer has arrived with a vengeance, it's the hottest week of the year and Gwen is leaning over an engine compartment that is hot to the touch even inside the shade of the garage.

She's alone and she's stripped her overalls down to her waist and if she thought she could get away with it she would strip off her thin tank top too.

She hears somebody pull up the shutter that's half closed over the garage's entrance to keep the worst of the heat out. There are no customers booked in so she looks round expecting to see Will or Merlin come to say hello.

Instead, there's Morgana, who wasn't supposed to be back from her business trip until the end of the week. Gwen starts to turn, a smile blooming across her face. Morgana drops her bag, takes three quick steps and presses herself against Gwen's back, trapping Gwen between the car and Morgana.

"Christ," Morgana breathes against Gwen's neck.

Gwen pushes back against Morgana's hips. "I'm filthy," she warns. In response Morgana slides her hands under the hem of Gwen's top, fingers brushing the underside of Gwen's breasts. Gwen shivers. Morgana always has cold hands, something to do with poor circulation, and in this heat being touched by her is even more amazing than usual.

"You smell amazing," whispers Morgana, her breath tickling Gwen's ear. Laughter burbles in Gwen's throat because she really has missed her ridiculous girlfriend.

"I like the way you look like this," Morgana says.

Really, Gwen would never have been able to tell. Morgana's cool hands are roaming over her skin and her touch is such a relief that Gwen mewls an objection when Morgana pulls one hand away.

"I was planning on taking you out for dinner, but I think food can wait, don't you?" Morgana says, sliding a hand beneath Gwen's coveralls and inside her knickers.

"Morgana!" One of these days Morgana's thing for semi-public sex is going to get them both into terrible trouble, but as long as they don't get interrupted before Morgana stops being such a bloody tease, Gwen can't bring herself to care. "Morgana, _please_."

Morgana nips at Gwen's earlobe, but does as she's told, moving her fingers harder and faster and just the way she knows Gwen likes. Gwen throws her arm back, digging her fingernails into Morgana's jaw and tugging at her hair.

"Christ," Morgana whispers breathlessly against Gwen's neck when it's all over.

Gwen turns round, quite pleased that her knees are still working after all that. Morgana looks almost as disheveled as Gwen feels, a handprint marked in diesel oil on the side of her jaw.

"You do know that dinner's going to have to wait," says Gwen.

Morgana's grin is face splitting. "What would you like to do instead?"

"Did you drive here?"

"Yes."

"And your new car has air conditioning?"

"Uh huh."

"Backseat, Morgana. Right now."


	2. Coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the timestamp meme on lj/dw, for greenteafarm who asked for a coda set three months after the end of the original fic.

7.  
"Are we planning to give our friends alcohol poisoning?" Gwen asks when Morgana returns from the supermarket with enough alcohol to float a battleship. 

"Only if the situation gets desperate," says Morgana, unpacking two bottles of that extremely expensive vodka she favours, which Gwen has never understood because all vodka, no matter how expensive, tastes of nothing more than vague burning sensation to her. 

"We're only going to have another flat warming when we get our new place." 

For the moment Gwen is moving in with Morgana; there's more space, it's not a much longer journey to the garage in the mornings, and it's postponing the inevitable squabble about where they're going to live, how much it should cost, and who's paying for what.

"Yes," Morgana flashes Gwen one of her trademark diabolical smiles. "But it'll be a much smaller party because some of them may have died. By the way, there's a crate of beer in the car." 

Of course there is, thinks Gwen.

*

Gwen's friends and Morgana's having bonded over the shared trauma of moving boxes of Gwen's stuff clear across London through Saturday morning rush hour, the party goes much better than expected. 

Arthur is thinking of getting a new car and actually seeks Gwen out to ask her opinion, and Leon attaches himself to their conversation and tells Gwen that he finds her opinions on semi-automatic transmission "quite sensible."

Crouched on the floor by their feet Freya is examining Morgana's bookcases, which contain all the volumes to be expected of someone who read English at Cambridge. But Gwen happens to know that the books Morgana actually reads are in a box under her bed, tragic lesbian romances and the Game of Thrones books, mostly. 

Gwen excuses herself and heads to the kitchen to get another glass of wine, she shares an amused look with Freya as she goes; both of them have spent enough time with Merlin and Will to recognise the sound of boys pretending to know about cars. 

She spares a sideways glance for Merlin and Owain, doing shots with what Gwen is fairly sure is Morgana's 25 year old single malt, and brushes her fingers over Morgana's wrist when she passes her girlfriend arguing about Margaret Thatcher with Will. Gwen smiles at that, because she knows that Morgana hates Thatcher as much as anyone with two brain cells to rub together, she just pretends to be a fan to wind Will up.

*

In the kitchen Morgause is mixing herself a white russian, of all things. "I should apologise," she tells Gwen.

"Um." 

Until now Gwen could have counted every word Morgause had addressed to her and still had fingers left over.

"I had assumed this relationship was Morgana's idea of a joke, but no, she says it's serious."

"You thought that Morgana was going out with me for a joke?"

"Admittedly, I wasn't sure what the punch line was going to be."

Finishing her drink Morgause leaves Gwen alone, obviously considering the subject closed. 

*

Gwen has retreated to Morgana's bedroom - her bedroom too, now - to catch her breath and clear her head. There are boxes everywhere in here. Mostly, Morgana's been surprisingly considerate in making space for Gwen, but fitting Gwen, Morgana and all of Morgana's clothes into one bedroom is proving a challenge. 

Gwen smiles when the door creaks open and Morgana slips inside. 

"I thought you were arguing politics with Will?"

Morgana sets her glass on the dresser, steps gracefully over a box and joins Gwen on the edge of the bed. 

"I thought we'd best stop when we found ourselves acting out a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

"Which scene?"

"Watery tarts distributing swords is no basis for a system of government," Morgana quotes in a truly dreadful English accent, and Gwen bumps her shoulder affectionately against Morgana's.

"Won't we be missed out there?"

"I doubt it. Morgause has joined in the drinking game. It will be sad for Freya when Merlin dies, and of course I shall miss Owain, but it should keep everyone entertained."

Morgana tips her head forward and kisses Gwen's neck, dragging her teeth across her collarbone.

"Oh. _Oh_. Morgana, if someone comes in--"

"They won't."

"But if they do--"

"We return to Plan A, alcohol poisoning."

"Well," Gwen falls back onto the bed, pulling Morgana on top of her, "as long as there's a plan."


End file.
